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iTunes One Year Anniversary Sparks Comparison
An anonymous reader writes "CNet News is running a story about the upcoming one year anniversary of Apple's iTunes service. It gives a pretty good summary of the year in online music, with a nice chart comparing each service's user base now and then. The most interesting quote in the article is from a record executive stressing that the industry is quietly hoping that the online music stores will start selling songs in compatible formats. As a sidenote, the headline story at the beginning is based off this page."
[puts on tinfoil hat] I'm sure they'd love that. The saying from LoTR comes to mind:
One Ring to rule them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them.
I wouldn't mind having compatible formats either, I just don't want the RIAA having absolutely any say in it whatsoever, because they don't exactly have the best track record of making decisions which are beneficial to customers.
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Although Apple has taken a largely proprietary approach to iTunes, it made one major concession by making its software compatible with Microsoft's Windows operating system, effectively untying the iPod from the Mac in hopes of tapping into the much larger market for Windows PC users.
Which is a massive part of the reason that they have been so successful at totally owning all the competition. If they'd just released iTunes for the Mac, they'd be drowned out by those who supported Windows-based clients simply by force of numbers. A very clever move by Apple: coupled with a huge amount spent on advertising this is a sure-fire way to make money and stay on top.
You just want free music. Go away.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I'd be shocked.
Google's business model[s] seem[s] to be based on the concept of charging vendors, rather than users. Is there a single google service that costs money for the average consumer to use? I don't pay to search, to blog, or to get my mail (gmail). I'd be surprised if their first foray into charging customers, if it ever happened, was in the field of online music (especially since I suspect they might have a hard time doing online music and abiding by the whole "don't be evil" thing -- they can't exactly do it without DRM).
Leave it to a Microsoft spokesman to complain about "closed ecosystems". Heh.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
It's interesting to me the way the three major players have laid out their strategies for digital music...
The Apple camp exists in a silo, as usual. Music purchased at the iTunes Music Store is only playable in iTunes, and only natively transfers to an iPod family portible.
The Real camp is using their proprietary format for audio that only RealPlayer can play in software, and there's only a limited number of portables that are compatible. In fact, only one of those portables is a true music player, the rest are Palm devices because there's a compatible player for Palm.
But Microsoft's only entering into the game as a software provider. That means there's no Microsoft music store, but everybody major other than Apple and Real are using WMA as the secure format of choice, including Napster, Wal*Mart, and BuyMusic. They've also got the largest selection of compatible players.
Really, going the Microsoft route for your DRMed music collection seems like the best answer to me, because you can then shop arround for the best price on single-track buys, and often find the hot songs for 79 or 88 cents. Who says the price of legal music downloads is going up?
and The most interesting quote NOT in the article is from Steve Jobs stressing that he can't possibly make money if the record industry jacks the prices to $2.50/song and bundles crappy songs with good songs, and is quietly scheming to force the music stores to do.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Convert the file to mp3 and you can play it on any player. It was done before with CDs. How do you think all those mp3s end up on Kazzaa? If you want to move your music you are going to have to do some work. Sorry. Always been that way. Remember taping albums to listen to them in the new fangled walkman?
Apple might have come out with the first big hit with iTunes, but there are always other that come along, make what was the shiznitz look lame. It will happen, maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will.
Now Microsoft setting up camp with their DRM will be a doozie and might even kill online music sales. I am sure the RIAA is really really sad about that.
Why not a neutral file format that all can use and enjoy - not locked into anything?
...but iTunes gave me the outlet to do what I wanted to do: LEGALLY BUY MUSIC ONLINE.
*NOW* we have options, but until iTMS, we DIDN'T.
Thanks, Apple, for that at least.
Useful to some, for sure, but useless for those among us who are trying to find ways of acquiring musical samples to "try out" various musical bands.
That is called "radio". It is any medium in which you don't get direct control over what song plays next, and therefore can be exposed to music you haven't heard of yet.
That's why that format of pushed-content pays less per song than any format that lets the user directly edit the playlist.
I wouldn't mind having compatible formats either, I just don't want the RIAA having absolutely any say in it whatsoever, because they don't exactly have the best track record of making decisions which are beneficial to customers.
The RIAA is going to have to be involved in any DRM system that wants to catch on, because simply put, they control most of the recognizable music in the world. Even if new indie labels start to catch on, that still won't account for the massive back catelog.
Looking at the comparison table, it isn't fair to list Rhapsody in there, with Rhapsody being a streaming service and almost every other player in there is a download service. Interesting to note that , RealPlayer music store is listed in there too and has a pretty good download number for something that opened just one-two months back.
Napster, by that logic, is double-dipping because they offer both a 99-cent download-and-keep service, and a $9.99 a month stream-but-don't-keep service.
You're right, the chart is not exactly apples-to-apples comparing... Rhapsody and Napster are offering a different service model altogether compared to the other stores, even though their owners are also keeping their toes in the store model just in case.
Fileformats are not the only key to success. I mean, where are all the big European online strores, for example? How many ITMS competitors sell outside US?
I think there are lots of potential customers outside US just waiting the oppoturnity to spend their hard-earned money on good and legal music.
Your own question: Why not a neutral file format that all can use and enjoy - not locked into anything?
Your own answer: How do you think all those mp3s end up on Kazzaa?
The dumb-user's urge to file share things that under copyright is why the content industry doesn't want to release things in open formats anymore.
The trick is, the ones that are doing this to sell devices have absolutely no incentive to use a format compatible with other devices. For one thing, they make a trivial amount on the music sale itself. For another, once they've hooked you they want to keep you.
For the music execs, however, it's all about music sales. So clearly it would be better if a consumer could go to any store and have all that music in their combined library. I for one would prefer that, too. It would be so much nicer to have a single media library application that could search and buy from any store simply by installing a plugin.
How can we get them to go in that direction?
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
I wouldn't mind having compatible formats either, I just don't want the RIAA having absolutely any say in it whatsoever, because they don't exactly have the best track record of making decisions which are beneficial to customers.
How about the decision to sell the music you're buying? Remember, when you buy music from major labels and even some independents, you're buying the RIAA's products. If you don't let them dictate the format, you won't be able to buy it at all.
Maybe the solution is to give users unecrypted un drmed music, ala eMusic? The RIAA needs to face the fact that DRM is not going stop illegal downloading. Giving your customers what they want will attract people from kazaa and emule.
"What they want" is music for nothing. That isn't gonna happen. There's no way you'll get people off of kazaa and emule as long as they still are allowed to operate, which is why the effort is to shut them down.
The RIAA needs to face the fact that DRM is not going stop illegal downloading. Giving your customers what they want will attract people from kazaa and emule.
Locking the doors on my car will not prevent someone from breaking in and stealing it's contents, nor the car it's self. Does that mean I should stop locking my doors and even keep the windows down to make it easier for the potential thief? NO!
By keeping my vehicle as secure as I can, I limit the number of people willing and able to steal it or it's contents. The RIAA is no different. DRM isn't intended to force EVERYONE to buy legit copies of music, the goal is to make piracy so hard that there is less and less incentive in doing so.
Example: DirecTV piracy, the new generation of access cards (P4's I believe) are damned evil, so evil they have a built in sucicide system that if it thinks you're trying to hack it... it wipes it's self clean. With a proper hardware and money, a person could reverse engineer the system, discover it's deepest darkest secrets and possibly build a piracy system around it... but because it's looking to be that difficult to hack (at this time (with out insider info)), the days of simply reprogramming a DirecTV access card are quickly coming to an end.
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Is somebody bitter?
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
How can we get them to go in that direction?
Stop pirating the fuck out of every artists' music on P2P networks for one. We kinda have to show that there's a demand for it.
A lot of execs are probably scared to death of online music stores precisely because so many users use online services to rip them off and pirate everybody's music. No wonder they're hesitant...if people were simply honest and showed an interest in being legal, you'd have what you wanted.
There's only one way for music commerce to be available to Linux users. It's a two-step process.
1. There must be a significant number of Linux users. There aren't. The various roadblocks associated with this are left for another discussion.
2. Linux users must restrain themselves. If the vendors see Linux users as a hostile environment, they're not going to ship their products on that platform, no matter what the market mass is. That means no reverse engineering, no hacking, no "just to see if I could," no "it's fair use, dammit!" No more moving projects off-shore to try to hide their obvious criminal nature. (If you want the law changed, lobby Congress.)
Until both of these things happen, forget it.
I write in my journal
No. It is our duty to demonstrate that there is a demand for non DRM crippled, portable, music. Currently the only way to demonstrate that demand online is by using a free alternative to the non-free, restricted, music formats currently on offer.
Stop pirating the fuck out of every artists' music on P2P networks for one. We kinda have to show that there's a demand for it.
Fuck that. Things always get worse. Look at DVDs. They started out OK--- movies in a clean format, random access, extra features, all good. Once DVDs became popular THEN it was time to fuck it up by pinching every nickel out of the format. First we had unskippable FBI warnings. Then unskippable movie previews. Now we have unskippable ads and previews at the beginning of disks. Combine that with increased product placement in the movies themselves, "enhanced" region encoding and media companies suing the hind legs off companies that make legitimate products like DVD X Copy and at some point you have to say "Enough is enough!" and start pushing back. The IP rights media companies claim were granted by "We the People" and not the other way around. Abuse those rights and you can kiss our collective asses because you have no rights unless the majority of the people think you do.
Enter p2p file sharing. The computer technology that's being used to systematically break the back of the working man is now bringing the working man some dividends in the form of easy copying of any and all media he can get his grubby hands on. One thing corporations have taught us is that there is only one rule and that is to do anything you can get away with it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you twist the rules, lie, cheat and steal then you shouldn't be surprised when others follow your example. That's why the media companies can BITE ME. Every dog has his day and ours is today.
But Apple doesn't want to win, at least not in the way you think. Apple wants to sell products to people who are willing to payh more for quality. There are enough of these people to make Apple a very profitable company. When they strayed from this and tried to compete with the likes of Dell they got crushed. If the DRM/media market starts looking like it will be controlled by "da cheapest iz de greatest" crowd, Apple should bow out and leave that wallow to the pigs know it best.
Why are you proxying the https port? One of the points of SSL is the explicit verification that the remote end is who they say they are. If you're proxying the https port, you're essentially inserting a "man in the middle" of the connection, which I wouldn't expect to work. iTunes likely has the iTunes store's public key stored somewhere and there's no way your proxy is going to be able to insinuate itself into the connection without iTunes knowing about it. If the use of SSL is to mean anything iTunes has to reject the connection if the keys don't match.
You're saying that the format the customer can share music with their friends with will result in more sales. And you say that's a fact. Sounds rather counter-intuitive to me, but if it's a fact, you'll have some evidence to back it up, won't you?
From the CNet article:
But some rivals said they expect Apple's dominance will be temporary.
"Apple is probably still riding the wave of their initial launch," said Jason Reindorp, a group manager in Microsoft's Windows digital media unit. "They have spent an inordinate amount of money to generate awareness around their closed ecosystem. (But) as people get more sophisticated in this area they are going to be getting more frustrated with a closed ecosystem. I think the market will kind of self-correct as things get more mainstream."
(Let's ignore the fact, for the moment, that CNet decided to end the article with such a poorly written presentation of Apple's "rivals" that think the "dominance [of iTunes] will be temporary" by quoting a Microsoft rep and... hrm... just that one MS rep.)
Is that some sort of joke? A Microsoft employee says that the folk at Apple, "have spent an inordinate amount of money to generate awareness around their closed ecosystem" and that "the market will kind of self-correct as things get more mainstream"?!!
No, Mr. Reindorp, the market doesn't always self-correct. Let me refer you across campus to your OS development building see when it doesn't. You, of all companies, should know the advantages of spending inordinately more than anyone else is prepared to spend to effect dominance in a market. Lucky for you OS consumers haven't reached the level of "sophistication" when it comes to operating systems that you expect from them in the digital music arena.
I'm heartened to see, at least for the time being, a market where Apple is comfortable betting the farm (the market Apple calls a "digital lifestyle" where the Mac is a "digital hub") and MS is not. I'm not sure I 100% believe what Cringely recently said, but this is one case where I hope Apple does ignore MS and keeps releasing a superior product with an inordinately high budget behind it.
And this hope isn't just b/c I like Apple and use OS X daily at home, but also because I'm a stockholder. Apple's plan as you characterize it, as every MS employee should know, is often inordinately successful.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I am shocked and amazed at how rapidly Walmart has dominated the WMA market. I am equally shocked that iTMS has been surpassed by the WMA alternatives. March 2004 numbers:
iTMS - 4.9MM (Fairplay)
Walmart - 2.7MM (WMA)
Napster 2.0 - 1.9MM (WMA)
Musicmatch - 1.5MM (WMA)
BuyMusic - 0.5MM (WMA)
That's Fairplay - 4.9MM to WMA 6.6MM (1.7MM more WMA than Fairplay songs - or 34% more than iTMS!)
As an Apple fan (DOS 2001) I want to deny this but the numbers speak for themselves.
It is the truth that whichever format sells more songs will become the standard because to switch to the other format will require not only the re-purchase/re-rip of the song library but the re-purchase of the player as well.
Unless Apple is fibbing on the small margin they make (not likely as they have stated it openly and SEC may have a fvew questions if they have been) then it seems like Apple needs to support WMA with the iPod as well as Fairplay for DRM so that the iPod can remain King, Queen, and Jack of the hill.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
You realize that in actuallity you are calling mp3's a niche. I have a DVD player, computer (whatever OS I want), a PDA, and a boombox that can play mp3s. They can't all play aac, they can't all play windows media, or even ogg.
The standard they want is actually mp3. When they give up on their addiction to DRM and actually sell mp3s I will be in line to buy.
When you pick a computer, you choose operating systems. When you pick a mp3 player, are no choosing an OS. The mac market is small because there is a HUGE barrier to entry - whether it be other people not using it, or lack of software, or whatever.
With the iPod, you can use it no matter what comptuer you have. There is still a barrier though - the "switchers". There in lies the problem. People who have bought songs using walmart.com and who have the RIO or whatever cannot switch to an iPod and keep their music. I think that Apple is either missing this point or they are hoping it won't affect them.
A solution is not to open Fairplay and the iPod, but make it compatible with all formats. Let people load on their WMA files. Who cares? If they aren't making a ton of money on the songs, then who really cares where they come from? The Microsoft tactic of embrace and destroy should be used here, not the tactic of "let me stay on my island come join me."
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My justification? I already bought the album. Technology has made the 20 cents worth of vinyl and cardboard obsolete, but I wasn't buying the vinyl and cardboard. I bought the right to listen to the music.
The current attempt at DRM will fail because it is so Draconian and seems designed to profit RIAA companies. A good legal arrangement protects both sides. Existing copyright laws do a good job of prohibiting unauthorized copies while ensuring fair use. Copies are permitted to ensure compatibility with changing technology, but anyone who sells unauthorized copies will be arrested. Copyright laws work because they protect the artists. But DRM is just a way of leasing you the music rights, and charging again every time the technology results in a different format, or you buy a new computer, or....
Even though I resent the RIAA's greed based policies and short sightedness, I still buy CDs when I didn't already own the rights to listen to the music. But I try to buy used CDs, so the money doesn't go directly to the RIAA.
This isn't news, but in order to survive the RIAA needs to take the long view, embrace technology instead of obstruct it, and consider what works best for their customers. The current RIAA has opened a market opportunity big enough to drive a tour bus through. All it'll take is some emerging artist with a few brain cells and vision to self-promote and embrace technology and the top heavy record industry will collapse from its own bloated stupidity.